


A Town called Amnesia

by ERS



Category: Original Work
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Fantasy, M/M, Original Slash, Originally Posted Elsewhere, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:55:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24663457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ERS/pseuds/ERS
Summary: A stranger is stranded in a remote town in the middle of a desert, and encounters a mentally impaired young man and his overbearing brothers. He soon realises that all is not what it seems.
Relationships: OMC/OMC
Comments: 9
Kudos: 17





	1. Chapter 1

I can never remember things. I suppose it’s a pity, but on the other hand I don’t know what it would be like to remember my past, so I don’t mind.

I don’t remember my parents. That’s not so odd, because they died when I was little, but I don’t remember my adopted parents, either. They died a few years ago, so all I’ve got left are my brothers, Nate and Eli, and the oldest one, Jake. They’re not my real brothers, because their parents adopted me. But Jake looks after me. Without Jake, I would be lost. You see, there’s something wrong with my brain. Jake says if they didn’t hide me away I would be locked up because I’m not normal. It’s lucky that our town is so far away from anywhere else, hardly any strangers come here, and we know everyone who lives here. No one here would ever tell on me. When a stranger comes to town, Jake locks me in the house so that no one can find me and so that I can’t wander out by mistake. He says I’m so stupid I might just do that. But he says it’s not my fault.

If the wrong kind of person found me, Jake says, they’d take me away and lock me up in a big building with all the other crazy people. I don’t want that. I’d be lost without Jake. Jake looks after me, he has since our parents died. We live in the house we used to live in with our parents, and Nate and Eli live in the rooms above the car repair shop and gas station.

Our town doesn’t have a name, it doesn’t need one. There’s nowhere else nearby, just a load of desert. Jake says that I’ve been to a big town before, he took me there himself, but I can’t remember. I forget everything.

I’m really lucky to have Jake. He’s a very important man in the town. He owns the gas station and the car repair shop, and also the guest house. We hardly ever have any guests there, but I keep it clean and tidy. I like being there. I like imagining what it would be like if lots of people were living there and if I didn’t have to hide because I’m not all right in my brain.

Jake lets me watch TV sometimes, but only some things, because he says that a lot of the stuff on television will make my brain even worse. I’m glad he looks after me. I don’t want to forget even more things.

I don’t like Eli, he calls me “the retard”, and when no one is looking he will kick me or punch me. But Eli is scared of Jake, so he never does it when he’s around. Nate is all right, Nate mostly ignores me. Sometimes he buys me wine gums at the shop and says it’s because he knows I like that kind of thing. I do, but I don’t remember ever telling Nate that. But then there are so many things I can’t remember.

The other people in the town hardly talk to me. Jake says it’s because I’m sick in the head. That makes them afraid of me. There was an old man once, at least I think there was, because I know I can’t trust my memory, who spoke to me and who told me to visit him. The next day, he was dead. But Jake says that never happened and that it’s my memory playing tricks on me again. Funny, because it seems so real.

Anyway, what happened is this: When I went to the guest house this morning, there were two pens lying on the counter. Normally, there is only one. So before I had thought about it, I had put one in my pocket. Jake didn’t see me. There are a couple of empty notebooks in the cupboard in the guest house, so I took one. Jake wouldn’t like it if he knew I wanted to write stuff down because he says it’s bad for my brain, but I think if I start keeping a sort of diary then maybe I can remember the things I keep forgetting. So anyway I am writing things down every day and reading them when I get the chance.

Jake just came into the guest house and so I had to hide the notebook. He’s gone back to the car repair shop now, so I thought what I’d do is write down what I do every day, so I don’t forget anything. Jake says I would forget to get up if he didn’t remind me. He sleeps in the same bed, so I’m not likely to forget, as he wakes me up at the crack of dawn every morning.

We get up in the morning and wash, Jake makes sure that I wash myself properly. Then I go downstairs and make some coffee and our breakfast. Jake likes fried eggs for breakfast, but they make me feel sick so I just have toast. Then Jake drops me at the guest house, and drives on to the car repair shop. It’s a small town, so there aren’t many cars to repair and not many to fill up with fuel, so Jake, Nate and Eli drive the pick-up into the desert. Jake sometimes lets me come, too. I love that. He drives really fast and there’s nothing there for miles and miles, just rough ground, sand and a few straggly bushes. It makes me feel free. I don’t feel free when we’re home because Jake doesn’t even like me to leave the guest house alone. I know it’s only for my own protection because my head is damaged, but I’d still love to go out sometimes.

Sometimes I have weird dreams or visions. I used to tell them to Jake, but he would get really angry about them, so I stopped. He said they were a sign of how cracked I am. I saw people I didn’t know, but in the dream I did. I heard voices speak that sounded familiar, but they weren’t any voices I recall belonging to anyone I know.

You see, that’s what happens when your brain is addled. You go off on a tangent. Jake calls it rambling, and he hates it when I do that. I was going to talk about my day when I got distracted. So what I do is I clean the guest house, and then I use the kitchen to cook lunch. Jake, Nate and Eli all come here to eat then, unless they are out in the desert for the whole day. After that I clean up the kitchen, do some more tidying and wait for Jake to come and pick me up. Then we go back home. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s better than being locked up for being soft in the head, that’s what Jake tells me.

In the evenings we sometimes watch some TV, but I have to leave the room when the news programme comes on, Jake says it’s bad for my head. We watch programmes about cars and trucks, because that’s what Jake works with, and sometimes other stuff that I don’t understand with people talking and arguing about things I have never heard of. Jake sends me to bed early, because he wants to watch some programmes that I can’t watch. When he comes to bed I’m usually awake, but I always pretend to be asleep. Sometimes he leaves me alone, and sometimes he doesn’t. I daren’t complain though, because Jake would hit me. He says I should be grateful because I am so ugly that no one else would want me. He says he is just taking pity on me. I wish he wouldn’t, though, but I owe him something for taking care of me, that’s what he tells me.

I wish I could go out of the town and go somewhere else. There must be somewhere else. Even on Jake’s motoring programmes I can see that there are other places with green trees and rivers, big cities and lots of people. But I can’t leave, or they’d lock me up. Plus, I’m so ugly that people would hate me. But it’s funny, if I’ve never been away from here, how come I know about such places? I don’t ask Jake questions like that anymore, because he gets angry and slaps me.

*

So I haven’t written for a while, because basically nothing ever happens to write about. It’s funny, since I’ve been writing stuff down, I’ve been feeling sadder and sadder. Like I never used to think about my life, but now I’ve written it down, I feel so unhappy about everything. Sometimes I think it would be worth the risk of getting caught and being locked up just to get out of town, just once. But I can’t ask Jake, he’ll only hit me, and no one else would take me. I’m not allowed to drive although I’ve watched Jake drive so many times that I almost think I could drive myself; and I can’t get away on foot. I’d just get lost in the desert and die.

But then I think how ungrateful I am, after all Jake has done for me, protected me, looked after me and kept me in his home, although he could have done so much better for himself. He tells me he really loves me, and for this I should be thankful. He says it’s what God wants, and that God told him that he should look after me. Jake is a very devout believer, and goes to church every Sunday. He doesn’t take me, because of my defects, but he reads the Holy Book to me on Sunday afternoons. He says it improves my soul, but I hate hearing about all the suffering and dying. I don’t say so, because Jake would call me an unbeliever and a sinner, and beat me for my own good. So I sin in silence.

*

It’s been two weeks since I last wrote in this book. At first, I didn’t know what else to write, but yesterday, something strange happened. I was polishing the glasses in the guest house kitchen when someone banged the bell on the reception desk. At first, I couldn’t place the noise. The only people who come into the guest house are my brothers, and they don’t press the bell. So I hurried out of the kitchen, and there was a man standing at the desk, a stranger. He looked quite different to anyone in the town. He was quite young, perhaps in his twenties, and had really nice hair and a kind face. His clothes looked new and very smart. He was wearing biking clothes. I know what they look like because of the programmes I watch with Jake. I was frightened, because I thought that he had come to take me away. He just stared at me at first, so I thought he had realised that there was something wrong with me, but he smiled at me and then I thought that maybe he had just stared because I am so ugly. I was a bit scared, but I asked him what he wanted, and he seemed surprised. Instead of telling me, he asked me my name and wanted to know all sorts of things that I was sure I shouldn’t be talking about, like whether I had lived in the town for long, and how old I was. All the time he stared at me. But he spoke to me so gently and softly that I couldn’t really be afraid of him. Then suddenly he stretched his arm out and stroked my hair out of my face. I jumped backwards, not expecting the gesture. If Jake’s arm comes towards me, it’s to hit me. I was sure that Jake would not approve of a strange man stroking my face.

The man apologised when I jumped back, then he explained that he had come to town because his motor bike had broken down in the desert, luckily not far from town. He asked me if there was a garage in the town where he could get it repaired, so I directed him to Jake’s garage. He told me to book him a room in the guest house, and to bring his bag upstairs. I was excited to have a guest, and I didn’t tell him that he would be the first guest there for years apart from, occasionally, a drinking buddy or two of Jake’s from out of town. I hated it when Jake’s friends came, they would always stare at me and laugh, and one of them cornered me one night when he was drunk and grabbed my crotch. Luckily Jake caught him at it, and I never saw him again. You see, that is one thing that I can always depend upon, Jake will always protect me.

I watched the strange man go outside, where his motorbike was standing. I hadn’t noticed it before, and I hadn’t heard it because he must have pushed it up the street. He pushed it in the direction I had told him to go towards the garage. I wondered whether I should have gone with him, because Jake can be gruff, and he doesn’t like strangers. On the other hand he doesn’t really like me talking to anyone. I could imagine that he would hate me to suddenly come to the garage with a stranger. So I let him go on his own, and hoped that Jake would be friendly because I really like the man.

I chose my favourite room for the stranger, it’s a large one that has a window out to the back from which you can see the desert stretching out for miles. It’s on the shady side of the house, too, so it doesn’t get too warm, although all the rooms have air conditioning. A man sometimes comes to service them. He’s a friend of Jake’s, and they spend the evening drinking together.

So I lifted the dust covers from the furniture and put fresh linen on the bed, and made sure that everything was clean. I put the stranger’s saddle bags on the table and went back down to wait for him to return from the garage. Perhaps Jake would be coming with him, it was nearly five o’clock. I hoped Jake hadn’t sent the man away, but then he couldn’t very well if his motorbike was broken. Perhaps he had been able to repair it though. I was afraid that I would not get to see the stranger again, but then I remembered that his bags were in the room. He wouldn’t leave without them. Relief flooded through me, I wondered why. Yes, it is very unusual to have a stranger in the house, but it isn’t that. It sounds weird but I feel as if I have a connection to him. But it is probably because I am wrong in the head that I have thoughts like that. After all, he is a complete stranger.

I waited for a while, feeling tense, hoping that the stranger would return, when I heard the door of the guest house open, and Jake called out for me. I hurried out into the reception area, and saw Jake standing in the hallway with the stranger next to him. Jake looked happy, so I guessed that the stranger had money, and that Jake liked him, because he called for whiskey and went over to where there were a few tables and chairs. I brought two glasses and the bottle, and set it down on the table. The stranger said to me: “Aren’t you having any?” I just shook my head, afraid to say something that might make me look stupid, or make Jake angry, but Jake was in a good mood because he just answered: “My brother here isn’t all right in his head, and alcohol makes it worse.” I saw the stranger frown and look at me, and I felt sad because I supposed that he didn’t like me now that he knew there was something wrong with me, but then he smiled at me quickly, which made me feel warm inside.

Jake and the stranger drank for a while, while I hid in the kitchen and peeked at them from behind the kitchen door. I couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but Jake was laughing so I supposed everything was OK. Jake doesn’t like everyone, and he can suddenly lose his temper, but he’s usually all right when he’s drinking. I didn’t know whether to cook or what to do, and I was afraid to go out and ask, but Jake called me over before long.

“Clem,” he said, he never calls me Clement, just as he is never Jacob and Nathaniel is Nate, and Elijah is Eli, “Clem, you don’t need to cook tonight, we’re going over to the diner.”

Going to the diner is a rare occasion. It is just outside town, on the only road out. The road leads to the next town, a place called Utopia about three hours drive away. Jake tells me that I’ve been there, but I can’t remember that. I hate the fact that my memory is so bad. So the diner sits by the side of the road and is run by Martha, an elderly woman who frightens me because she always stares at me. I suppose it is because I am so ugly. There are hardly any strangers there because not many cars or lorries come through our town, only the occasional one or two, and they never stay long if they do. But it meant that Jake was in a good mood, and that he liked the stranger. That made me glad, because I want the stranger to stay.

So I was sitting in the diner, there were just a few other people sitting there, mainly older ones, there aren’t many youngsters in town. I was trying to be as quiet as possible. Jake had brought the whiskey bottle. He was adding shots to his own coffee and the stranger’s coffee, and the stranger was drinking, but I got the feeling that he wasn’t enjoying himself although he was laughing at Jake’s jokes, and I also think that he doesn’t much like Jake. I think he likes me though, because he always speaks really gently to me, not like Jake. But Jake is a good person really, he looks after me, he can’t help being angry sometimes, it’s not easy taking care of someone who is sick in the head like me.

I think the stranger is good-looking, because everyone in the diner was sort of staring at him secretly so as not to make Jake angry, and Jake was acting like he finds the stranger really attractive. Jake says it’s wrong to be attracted to men, but I know he is. That’s why he’s got me: Jake says it isn’t a sin with me because I’m not a proper person. Oh, and I found out the stranger’s name, because Jake said it, lots of times. It’s Malcolm, and I’m surprised that Jake hasn’t commented on it because it’s not a name from the holy book as far as I know. Jake doesn’t like names that aren’t from the holy book.

When we got back from the diner, Jake wanted to drink some more, but the stranger said he was really tired and went up to his room. Jake was a bit disappointed I think, after all, he doesn’t get much company, and when he came to bed he wouldn’t let me sleep and it was painful. I just grit my teeth and took it, while I thought how kind the stranger seemed, and how sad it would be when he left. It’s morning now, Jake is still asleep because he drank so much, and so is the stranger. I’m writing this down so that I don’t forget it again. I don’t want to forget the stranger.


	2. Chapter 2

So we slept in one of the rooms in the guest house last night, me and Jake, so that I could be up early to serve breakfast for the stranger. I set a table and got everything ready, and the stranger came down before Jake did, who was still asleep. Sometimes when Jake drinks a lot he sleeps a bit later than usual. The stranger followed me into the kitchen after I offered to make him some coffee, and he had that puzzled look on his face that I had noticed before when he looked at me. So he talked a bit about how remote the town is, and how he was lucky that his motorbike had broken down close by, because he would have been in trouble if he had been somewhere in the middle of the desert, and he told me had lost his way. He talked about places that I hadn’t heard of, although the names seemed remotely familiar, perhaps I had heard them on TV before. And then suddenly, he asked me: “Why are you here? You’re young, have you never thought of leaving this place? It must be boring.” I didn’t know what to say at first. Didn’t he realise that I would be locked up if I wasn’t here, with Jake to care for me? So I told him that I was not right in the head, and that I needed Jake to look after me. He just looked at me for a while until I warned him that his coffee was getting cold.

“How are you not right in the head?” he asked me, “I don’t understand.” I wondered if there was something wrong with him, seeing as he had not noticed. Anyway, I was sure that Jake must have told him. So I told him that I can’t remember stuff and get everything mixed up.

“Jake says they would lock me up with the other crazies if I left,” I told him.

“They don’t lock people up for forgetting,” the stranger answered, “there are doctors who treat that kind of thing.”

I began to feel afraid of the stranger. I knew that was not true, and that I could not leave the town, Jake had told me so, and Jake wouldn’t lie to me, ever.

“Anyway,” I added, “look at me. I’m a freak. People are afraid of me. When you’re ugly like I am, you must be glad if someone looks after you and protects you. No one would want anything to do with me.” The stranger made a very weird face that scared me, and then he started to laugh. I felt the tears come into my eyes, I thought he was nice. I didn’t expect that he would make fun of me.

“Who told you that?” he snapped in a voice that sounded angry, “was it Jake?” I felt afraid now. I wished that Jake would wake up and help me.

“Everyone tells me,” I managed to say.

“Who?” the stranger demanded.

“I don’t know, I can’t remember,” I said, and I couldn’t stop the tears from coming out of my eyes. The stranger looked really shocked, and then he moved his hand towards my face. I thought he was going to hit me like Jake does when I cry, but he brushed the tears from my face.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I don’t want to upset you. Think about my question and give me the answer when you remember.” Then he withdrew his hand. “Is there a mirror somewhere here?” I nodded.

“There’s one in the hall, next to the coat rack,” I sniffed, feeling a mixture of miserable and happy.

“Would you show me?” the stranger asked, so I went with him to the mirror.

I don’t like looking in the mirror, because I know I’m ugly and my hair sort of sticks up and I don’t know how to make it flat. But the stranger took my elbow and made me stand with him in front of the mirror. I looked worse than ever, my nose and eyes were red from crying.

“Look at me in the mirror,” the stranger told me, and his voice was very gentle again, “do you think I’m ugly?” I stared at him. He was good-looking, like the people on TV, and anyway, Jake liked him and the people in the diner stared at him, so he had to be good looking.

“No, you’re handsome,” I told him.

“Thank you,” he answered and smiled, he has a lovely smile and very white teeth. “Now look at yourself.”

“I don’t like to,” I told him and tried to turn my head away.

“Why not?” he asked, and I would have thought that he was making fun of me like Eli does, pretending to be nice and then jeering at me, but his voice was so kind.

“Because I’m ugly,” I cried.

“Look at my face, and then yours. Please do this for me.” His voice was so nice that I couldn’t say no. I looked at his nice, clean face and then at my blotchy, tear-stained one with the hair that sticks up. “Tell me the difference between my face and yours.”

At first, I didn’t know what to say, then I said, “my face is all red and yours isn’t.”

“It’s red because you have been crying. Stop crying, and the red will go away. Any more differences?”

I looked at my sticky-up hair and said: “Your hair is so smooth, and mine sticks up.” The stranger sighed and rolled his eyes like Jake does when I say something stupid. Then he fumbled a comb out of his back pocket.

“My hair sometimes sticks up too, so I always have a comb in my pocket.” He smiled. “May I?” He gently touched my hair with the comb. It sent shivers down my back. I nodded, and he combed my hair back from my face very gently. “Look, your hair is smooth, too. Now tell me what other differences you see between our faces.” I looked carefully. He has blue eyes, and mine are more green or grey. His hair is sort of reddish-blond, and mine is sort of brownish blond, or light brown. So I told him that we had different hair and eyes. “Do you still think that you’re ugly?” he asked, “because I can’t see that much difference between us. Your eyes and hair are a different colour. We both have two eyes, a mouth and a nose. Your nose is straight, you have very pretty lips, nice teeth, and beautiful green eyes. How are you ugly?” I felt confused.

“But everyone tells me so,” I protested.

“Everyone’s a liar or a fool,” the stranger answered, and he sounded angry.

There was the noise of Jake moving around upstairs, apparently he had woken up.

“Don’t say anything about this to Jake,” I pleaded with him.

“I had no intention,” the stranger answered. “What would he do if I did ask him why he tells you that you are ugly when you patently are nothing of the kind?” I grabbed his hand. I couldn’t tell him that Jake would beat me, and maybe something else horrible would happen.

“Just don’t,” I begged him.

“I wouldn’t ever do anything that you didn’t want me to,” he told me earnestly, and it made me feel funny, as if he had said that to me before. But that’s because I’m not right in the head, whatever the stranger says.

*

I stopped writing because Nate came by to tell me that they were working on the stranger’s bike, and that they would all be over for lunch. The stranger is helping them, he knows all about bikes, but Nate said they had to order a part from out of town, so he might have to stay a few days until it is delivered, which I felt glad about. It means the stranger will be there a bit longer.

Seeing Nate made me think about what the stranger asked me. Nate has never said that I’m ugly. Nate is probably the least unkind of my brothers. He sometimes stops Eli from being nasty to me when Jake is not around. And Eli has never said I’m ugly either. He says I’m retarded and not all there, and things like that. I know he really hates me. I daren’t be alone with him because he hurts me a lot. Not like Jake, just a slap or a punch, but like he would kill me if he could. I’m scared of Eli. He calls me other nasty names and says I’m not his brother when Jake isn’t listening. But I am his brother, because his parents adopted me and we grew up together. I don’t know if Eli has always hated me, because I can’t remember what it was like when we were younger. I can’t remember my childhood at all. And I can’t ask anyone, because my brothers won’t speak to me about my past because it’s not good for me, and no one in town speaks to me anyway, they just turn away if I approach them. Some look scared, so I wonder if the stranger is right when he says I’m not ugly. Something about me seems to frighten them, and as I’ve never spoken to any of them, it must be my looks. Unless it’s something from my past. It’s all so confusing, and the stranger just doesn’t understand how complicated it all is with his talk of leaving the town and me not being ugly. He frightens me. The stranger frightens me. I have to make lunch now. I wonder what it will be like with all my brothers and the stranger together.

*

It’s night time. I can’t sleep. I don’t know if it’s something to do with the stranger, or whether it’s the whiskey he drank or just one of his moods, but Jake really hurt me. It hurts so much that I can’t go to sleep, and I can’t sit and I can’t walk well, either. We’re still sleeping in one of the rooms of the guest house, so I came down into the little dining room to be alone for a bit. I’m lying on my stomach writing this, it distracts me from the pain a bit and

I’m feeling kind of breathless now, that was a shock. I was writing and suddenly someone came into the dining room. If Jake had caught me and read this then he would have beaten me, and probably the stranger, too. Maybe even something worse. I don’t know. But it wasn’t Jake, and he’s snoring so loudly that I can even hear him down here. I think I can go up to bed in a bit, because the pain is a lot less. The stranger did that. He gave me some tablets to stop the hurt, and they helped a lot. But I want to write down what happened in case I forget it. I might have forgotten it by the morning, but now I can read it.

So I was writing in my notebook, which is getting pretty full now, when the stranger came in. He looked at me lying on the sofa, and didn’t say anything at first. Then he sat down on a chair next to me. I tried to get up, but he shook his head and told me to stay where I was very quietly. When he was sat next to me, he put his head close to mine so that he could whisper in my ear. He asked me what was wrong, and I told him it was nothing, but he could see that I was in pain. That’s when he went upstairs and came back with the tablets. He got me a glass of water and told me to swallow them because they would help. I was a bit afraid at first because I thought they might disagree with my head, but he told me I could trust him, and I do trust him somehow although I hardly know him, and it was true, after a while I could hardly feel the pain.

He asked me what had happened but I couldn’t tell him, so he just sat there looking sad. He wanted to know if I thought that Jake really was my brother, because it seemed to him that Jake did things to me that brothers don’t really do, so I told him about being adopted and not really a proper person because I am not right in the head. He looked really angry and hissed: “Fucking hell!” and I jumped because Jake says it’s a sin to swear and use bad words, but then he stroked over my hair ever so gently, sending shivers down my spine again, and spoke so softly and gently to me that I thought he must be a good man nonetheless.

“Listen, Clem,” he said to me then, “when my motorbike has been repaired, why don’t you just come with me? We don’t have to tell Jake, we’ll just leave at night, and by the time he notices you’ve gone, we’ll be in safety. You don’t have to say anything, but I want you to think about it.” That made me feel very frightened. Surely he must know that I can’t leave town, or Jake. I didn’t know what he meant by safety, because I could never be safer than I am here at home with Jake.

“But where would I go?” I asked him, “and who would look after me?”

“I would look after you,” he told me, “you could just come and live with me if you wanted, or we’d find you somewhere you liked to be.” But I shook my head.

“You don’t know what I’m like,” I said, “I’m sick in the head, I’m...” but he interrupted me.

“I know exactly what you’re like!” he answered, and he looked sort of upset, almost angry, and made me afraid again, “and I’ll take you to see a doctor who will make you well. He can make you remember things again.”

“I’m afraid,” I told him, and I just wanted him to stop saying these things, “I don’t want to leave town, and I don’t want to leave Jake.”

“But he hurts you,” the stranger took my hand, “you don’t deserve to be hurt.”

“Jake looks after me,” I said firmly, I didn’t like the way the stranger was talking about Jake, “he’s a good man. I’d be dead without Jake, or locked up.”

“Fuck,” the stranger said again, and he let go of my hand and wiped his eyes. “All right, listen to me. Just think about what I said. I don’t want you to do anything that you don’t want to do. But just promise me that you’ll keep it in mind.” So I nodded and he stood up. “If you need another pain-killer, tell me in the morning and I’ll give you one. Sleep well.” So he went upstairs to bed, and I’m writing all this down so I don’t forget it, and then I’m going to bed. Everything feels very weird and off-kilter tonight, as thought everything I ever believed isn’t true, and there’s something else underneath it all.

*

I’m feeling a bit better now. Jake apologised for hurting me, which I don’t think he’s ever done, and he’s gone over to the garage with the stranger to have another look at the bike. He asked the stranger if he wanted to come for a drive in the desert after lunch as there would be nothing much else they could do about the bike until the part was sent, but the stranger said he’d rather have a lie down and then wander around the town. I could see that Jake wasn’t pleased. It’s not just that he likes the stranger. I think he doesn’t want him to be here on his own and go around town, talking to people. Jake doesn’t like strangers in town, asking questions. But there was nothing he could do, really, so he told me to keep an eye on the stranger and tell me what he has been doing, and that made me feel really proud to think that Jake would rely on my judgement, but then I thought that I didn’t want to tell tales on the stranger as he has been so kind to me.

Lunch was the same as yesterday, with Nate, Eli, Jake, the stranger and me, and Nate was really quiet today and thoughtful, and Eli doesn’t like the stranger, I can tell. But I don’t think Eli really likes anyone much. He had a girlfriend once, I think he liked her, but one day she was just gone, and when I asked where she was he hit me so hard that my ears rang for half the day, so I never asked again. No one ever mentioned her after that, so I think that I may have imagined it all and there never was a girlfriend, I don’t know. There, I’m rambling again, I thought that had got a bit better, perhaps because of my writing things down, or perhaps because of the stranger. Talking to him seems to make me feel like I understand more and less at the same time. That sounds crazy.

I had that funny dream again that I’ve had before, where I’m driving through the desert with a car and it’s really hot, and I feel tired and keep thinking something about my grandfather and my mother, but it doesn’t make any sense, and then it all goes dark, and there’s a noise that I just can’t place.


	3. Chapter 3

This afternoon, the stranger didn’t go for a walk around town like he said he would, and he didn’t have a lie-down either. He asked me all sorts of weird questions that made my head hurt. I shall forget them if I don’t write them down, and he told me to keep thinking about them. I asked him why, and he said that he hoped it would help me remember things and get well again. I asked him if he was a doctor, and he said that he wasn’t, he said he was a writer. So he said the word sister, and I told him I only have three brothers, and he told me not to answer like that, but to answer without thinking, and just say the first thing that came into my head. So he said sister and the first thing that came into my head was “aggie”, which doesn’t seem to make any sense, but it made the stranger smile a lot, and he turned his face away quickly, I’m not sure why. Then he gave me a bunch of other words to respond to, but none of them made him smile as much as the first one, although he seemed pleased. He said Mary and Clive and I quickly said parents, although I don’t remember my parents’ names and I’m sure the stranger doesn’t know them, so it must have been fantasy. I think it was some kind of game to pass the time. Then he said his own name, Malcolm, and I said “you” but I had the strangest image of seeing him in another place, at another time, holding his arms out towards me and I realised that I had seen him before in my visions, or at least I think I have, and I told him to stop playing the game, because I hate having visions, they make me sad and they make me feel unreal. And Jake says they’re a sign of how unhinged I am.

Then he did something that I’m not sure I know what I feel about. He put his hand on mine and leaned forward until his face was really close to mine, and I think he was going to kiss me, only I pushed him away and ran and locked myself in the kitchen. He came after me and apologised through the door, and begged me to open it and promised he wouldn’t do it again. I was confused and frightened, but the worst of it was that I really wanted him to kiss me. But that’s wrong, because I belong to Jake and I shouldn’t ever think about anyone else. 

I did come out, and he asked me to follow him to the mirror and he made me stand in front of it and look at myself. Then he told me something about beauty being in the eye of the beholder, but that no one could seriously call me ugly, and that most people would consider me to be beautiful, and I told him that men aren’t beautiful. He said that some are, and that I am. He told me to look at myself with that thought in my mind, and I looked at my reflection and thought: I’m beautiful, and somehow I could see it, and I wondered why I ever thought I was ugly. Then I remembered. It was Jake who always told me that. Jake wouldn’t lie. So perhaps I am just ugly to Jake? I don’t understand it. I didn’t want to ask Malcolm, because now I’m pretty sure he hates Jake and would tell me anything that makes me hate Jake, too. Perhaps it’s because he wants to take me away from Jake, or perhaps he wants to take me away from Jake because that will hurt him. I don’t know what to think, and I don’t know if I should trust Malcolm either. But he makes me feel good in a way that Jake never does. Jake makes me feel bad about myself. Everything I ever thought was true has been turned on its head.

I kind of think that Malcolm doesn’t realise how dangerous Jake can be. He can get really angry. He talks about Jake as though he were someone that you don’t have to take seriously. I’m really afraid that something will happen soon.

*

Tonight was really horrible. We stayed in and I cooked for Jake and Malcolm. Jake was in a bad mood, and I’m not sure why. They must have had a conversation while I was in the kitchen, because when I went in, Jake was OK, and when I came out again, they both looked really angry. I thought I heard shouting while I was in the kitchen, but at first I wasn’t sure. When I came out and saw their faces, I knew that I had been right.

I’m not sure what was spoken between them, because neither of them said a word during dinner. Jake was swigging the whiskey from a large beaker filled to the brim, but Malcolm didn’t touch a drop. As soon as he had eaten, Jake stood up and knocked his chair back. I got up to take the dishes into the kitchen to wash up, but he grabbed me by the hair and dragged me with him towards the stairs.

“You’re coming with me,” he shouted at me. Malcolm got up to face him.

“Leave him alone,” Malcolm said very quietly, “you have no right to treat him that way.”

“I have every right!” Jake shouted, “I told you! If it weren’t for me, he’d be locked up! He needs to be watched, morning, day and night. It’s either that, or prison. Don’t you understand plain English?” I didn’t know what Jake was talking about, but apparently Malcolm did.

“I told you I didn’t believe you, and I don’t. He couldn’t hurt a fly.” He took a step towards Jake and me. “Let him go.” Jake considered this for a moment.

“All right,” he said, letting my hair go and giving me a push, “but I’m telling you that it’s all for his own good. You’ll see.” Jake sighed and smiled. It was a false smile, I could tell. “No hard feelings,” he said, “come and have something to drink.” He gestured to the chair. I could see that Malcolm didn’t want to sit down, but he looked over at me and I think he didn’t want to leave me alone with Jake.

So I took the dishes into the kitchen and loaded them into the dish washer. I took my time, because I really didn’t want to go back into the dining room. I couldn’t hear any more arguing though, and when I did finally go back, Malcolm was drinking some whiskey, and they were talking quietly. Jake seemed to have quietened down, and I sat to one side, listening to their conversation. Even I could tell that Malcolm was telling Jake stuff that he wanted to hear, how clever he was, and what a good job he was doing repairing the motor bike.

Malcolm eventually said he was tired, and went up to bed, and Jake and I went, too. Jake was quite happy now that the stranger had been nice to him, and he wasn’t rough with me and only made me suck him, which wasn’t too bad. Straight after, he rolled over, and started to snore.

I lay awake, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the word game I had played with Malcolm, and I couldn’t help feeling frightened, as if something bad was going to happen. When I saw Jake so angry with Malcolm I got really scared. I know Jake can get really mad, and I can’t help remembering the look on Jake’s face when that man grabbed my crotch. It was like the face he made looking at Malcolm. I never saw that man again. I don’t want Malcolm to disappear, too.

I just couldn’t sleep, so I got up and hoped that Malcolm would be up too, like last night. Jake was fast asleep and snoring loudly. So I got up and sneaked into the dining room, but there was no one there. I wondered if I should go upstairs and wake Malcolm up. I was a bit afraid that he would be angry, but I wanted to warn him to be careful of Jake. So I went back upstairs and knocked on the door of Malcolm’s room, which was at the other end of the corridor from the room that Jake was sleeping in. At first there wasn’t a sound, but then I heard footsteps coming towards the door. A key turned in the lock, and Malcolm’s head poked round the door. He looked really nice with his hair all fluffed, and a sleepy look on his face.

“Can I speak to you?” I asked him. He nodded, tiredly it seemed to me, and opened his door. Then he stopped.

“We’d best not be caught together in my room,” he said, “go downstairs into the dining room, I’ll just put some clothes on and come down in a minute.”

A few minutes later, he came into the dining room, and came to sit next to me on the sofa. He looked at me for a minute in a way that made me feel all warm inside.

“I wanted to warn you,” I told him.

“Warn me?” he asked, “about what?” I took a deep breath.

“You shouldn’t make Jake angry,” I said, “he can be dangerous. He might hurt you.”

“I’d like to see him try,” Malcolm growled, “I’m more afraid of him hurting you. Don’t worry about me.”

“You don’t understand,” I began and tried to think how to tell him about the people that Jake gets angry with, and how they never seem to come back when they have quarrelled with Jake, and how sorry I would be if I would never see Malcolm again. But I couldn’t find the right words, and Malcolm didn’t seem particularly interested.

“Listen,” Malcolm stared right into my eyes, “the part for my bike should be sent over tomorrow, which means that I will be able to leave the day after. I want you to come with me.” I squirmed. I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t want to never see Malcolm ever again, but this is my home and I don’t want to leave. I don’t know what’s out there. It’s big and scary. I’m not well. I hardly know Malcolm. How can I trust him?

“I can’t,” I answered. Malcolm grabbed my shoulder.

“Why not?” he asked. “You must come. I can’t leave without you.”

“I’m afraid,” I admitted.

“I know you think you don’t know me,” he said, “but you’re wrong. You do. You can feel it, I know you can.”

“You’re scaring me,” I told him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but we’re running out of time. I wish I knew what to say or do to make you trust me. I wish I knew how to make you remember. I know you don’t understand yet, but you will. I can’t go without you. All I ask is that you think about it.” He sighed. “It’s late. We should go to bed. Promise me one thing. Before you go to sleep, just think about the word game that we played together this afternoon. All right?”

“All right,” I said, “I promise.” He got up to go, but then he stopped.

“Does the name Tristan mean anything to you?” He looked at me curiously. I tried to think, but I felt as though something were blocking my thoughts.

“No,” I said, “I can’t remember anyone by that name.” I felt a bit sad because he looked so disappointed. “I’ll think about it,” I told him.

“Yes, you do that,” he answered, “you should do that.”

Malcolm went to bed and I took out my notebook, and I’m just jotting down what happened, and before I go to bed I’m going to think about the word game we played, and whether I know someone called Tristan.

*

Last night I had that funny dream again that I think I’ve had before, about the dark-haired girl. Sometimes she’s a child, and sometimes she’s a grown woman. In my dream I know her.

*

This morning, Malcolm and Jake went out to the garage to get things ready. All my brothers and Malcolm came for lunch today. I could see that Malcolm wanted to speak to me, but there was no way. Apparently the part for Malcolm’s motorbike had been delivered that morning, but it would certainly take the whole afternoon to get it fitted, and maybe tomorrow, too. I’m glad, because that means that Malcolm will at least be here today and perhaps all of tomorrow. Jake was in a good mood and kept slapping Malcolm on the back. Eli was glaring at Malcolm, at me and at Jake, and Nate was ignoring everyone.

When lunch was over and my brothers were setting out to go to the garage, Malcolm suddenly said that he felt hot and had to have a cold shower and a change of clothes. He told Jake and the others to go on ahead, and that he would follow. I could see that Jake didn’t like it, but he couldn’t really say anything against it, and so Jake, Nate and Eli went on ahead. Malcolm didn’t go up to his room though, he came into the kitchen and took hold of my hand. I thought he was going to start on about taking me away tomorrow, but he asked some really weird questions instead. Not word games this time, either. He asked me a lot of stuff about Eli, some of it I didn’t understand. He wanted to know why Eli dislikes me so much, and I told him that I don’t know. I don’t like talking about Eli, so I turned away and tried to go. But he held onto my hand.

“Clem,” he said, “do you remember Eli’s girlfriend?” Now that was a strange question, because it’s one I’ve often asked myself. Did he really have a girlfriend, or did I imagine it all? So I told him that I wasn’t sure because every time I’ve ever mentioned her, either Eli or Jake have hit me and told me to shut up, or that I have been imagining things. He looked sad at that.

“Please try to remember something, anything at all,” he insisted. So I thought about it hard.

“It’s difficult,” I said, “because it’s all muddled. You see, I can’t remember a lot of my past at all. Then there’s a part that I can only remember very vaguely, it’s a complete jumble. And it seems to me that if Eli did have a girlfriend, then it was around that time. But Jake told me that there wasn’t really a girlfriend at all, and that I was just imagining it.” Malcolm nodded.

“I’m pretty sure that there was a girlfriend,” he told me seriously, “and I want you to try and remember everything you can.” So I closed my eyes and tried to think about the visions I sometimes have, of a blond girl with short hair who I think was Eli’s girlfriend.

“She didn’t like Jake, I think she argued with him. But it had something to do with me, I don’t know what. I can remember a lot of shouting. Maybe it was me shouting though, I don’t know.” I tried my hardest to put the images in my head into words. “I remember something about driving into the desert and digging a hole. She wasn’t there. But it had something to do with her. I’m sorry. I can’t remember any more.” For some reason, the tears came into my eyes.

“It’s all right,” Malcolm said gently, “you did very well.“

“Jake doesn’t like me to talk about my visions,” I explained,” he says they make me even crazier.”

“Well I’d like to hear about them,” he answered, “because I think they might be important. So keep thinking about them, and don’t forget to think about our word game.” He let go of my hand. “I should go now, or Jake will be wondering where I am.” He turned to go, but then he looked back at me. “Remember your dreams, Clem; take that any way you want to.”

*

I’ve started on the second notebook. I hid the first one in the kitchen cupboard, right at the back, behind the big saucepans. No one looks in there besides me, so it should be safe there. I hope Jake doesn’t notice that the notebooks are gone, but I don’t think he will. Now I’ve started writing stuff down, it’s become an obsession.

I never used to think about my visions or my dreams, but now that Malcolm says that they may be important, I want to write some down. Like the funny feeling that I get sometimes that I used to live somewhere else, although I’ve always lived here. And that there are a whole bunch of other people who know me. The strangest thing is that one of them is Malcolm. I may be going crazy, or even crazier if that is possible. I daren’t tell Jake all this because he’d beat me within an inch of my life. He hates my crazy talk. I know that he means well, and that he’s just afraid that at one point I will go so crazy that he won’t be able to keep me here any longer and will have to bring me to the place they lock all the mad people up. I don’t care what Malcolm says, I’m sure it’s true that they would lock me up.

*

What I sometimes dream:

I am frantic. I have to be at the airport in about 3 hours. I’ll never make it. I take a short cut. It looked all right on the map, but it is an endless desert, and after miles and miles of nothing, the road has petered off and become nothing but a dusty track. My eyes keep shutting of their own accord, and I feel myself drift away into dreams. The air conditioning is on full throttle, but I still feel sticky and hot, I am getting low on petrol. I am sure I must have gone wrong somehow, because I should have been out of this dry wasteland by now. I can’t tell if what I am seeing on the horizon is the outline of a town, or a part of a dream I keep drifting into.

There is a constant noise. Then it stops.

“Hey, hey, are you alive?” a voice rattles in my head. Someone is shaking me carefully and a hand is wiping my face with something cool and wet. My head hurts and I’m not sure I can open my eyes. I’m trying to speak but my mouth is dry and all I can utter is a croak. I manage to open my eyes a slit, and I can see a man’s face staring down at me, black hair, black eyes and a strange smile on his face. There might be others but I can’t see them properly. Then there is a sound like a rush of wind and darkness surrounds me.


	4. Chapter 4

I can hear them rowing again at the breakfast table. I daren’t leave the kitchen, so I’m sitting at the kitchen table, writing. It seems to steady my nerves. I’m so afraid that Jake is going to hurt Malcolm.  
I don’t even know what they are rowing about. Maybe it’s me. Jake keeps telling Malcolm that he is wrong to think that “he” is harmless. Who is “he”? Is it me?

“You think he’s just a simpleton, but you’re wrong. He’s a danger to himself, and to others. Why do you think I keep him here, hidden? They’d lock him up if they found out. He’s murdered before, and he’ll kill again. Next time, it might be you. He deliberately crashed the car with my parents. He was the only one who survived. He’s clever, I’m telling you, and a good driver. That’s why I never let him near a car. And why do you think that Eli hates him so much? Ask Eli what happened to his girlfriend. Go on, I dare you. He’ll probably kill you if you ask him, but I can tell you. He strangled her. We buried her body in the desert to protect him. You see, his parents died in a car crash when he was a child. He survived, but he suffered brain damage. If we hadn’t looked after him, no one would have. So just shut the fuck up about him. We’ll finish your bike today, and tomorrow you’d better be on your way. You think he’s handsome, do you? Well let me tell you, he’s ugly on the inside, everyone in town knows that.”

Malcolm’s voice was very low and very angry when he answered. “I happen to know that you are lying. Every word you say is a lie, and I can prove it. But we’ll leave it at that for now. Thanks for helping me with the bike, I’ll be sure to make it worth your while. But we had better avoid the topic of,” he paused, “Clem, as you call him.”

“You sap,” Jake sneered, “fallen in love with him, have you? You wouldn’t be the first, and you won’t be the last. You should thank your lucky stars that you will be gone tomorrow.”

I’m still sitting at the kitchen table although they left to go to the garage a long while ago. They’re finishing the bike today, and tomorrow, Malcolm will be going home. I’ve been thinking about what I heard. Were they talking about me? Does that mean that I have killed people and don’t remember it? Did I kill Eli’s girlfriend, and my own adopted parents? I suppose it’s possible, because I don’t recall a thing. It would explain why the other people in town avoid me, and why Jake says it’s because I’m ugly. He’s trying to protect me from the truth. Well, that settles it. I had, for a moment, thought I could go away with Malcolm. But I’m a murderer. I do need Jake to look after me, so that I don’t do it again. I might murder Malcolm.

*

I waited until they had left until I ventured out of the kitchen to tidy up. Am I a murderer? Did I kill Eli’s girlfriend? But why would I? Maybe I really am mad. Certainly I can’t leave with Malcolm, he must see that now. Maybe it would be better if I were dead, but it is a sin to take your own life, that’s what the Holy Book says.

Tomorrow is Sunday, that means Malcolm’s motorbike must be finished today, because no one is allowed to work on Sundays. It also means that Jake, Nate and Eli will be at church tomorrow morning. So unless Malcolm goes with them, which I doubt as he doesn’t seem very god-fearing to me, it means I can be alone with him for two whole hours, unless he leaves before then. Perhaps he doesn’t want to be alone with me any more now he knows I’m a murderer. But first, I have to get through today.

*

Malcolm has just left. I can’t help thinking that he is becoming reckless. Jake must be getting suspicious.

What happened was this: he suddenly turned up in the kitchen, covered in oil.

“There was a leaky valve,” he grinned, “I managed to get oil all over myself. I came back for a shower.” He smiled again and came closer. “Actually, I came back because I wanted to talk.”

“I know you don’t want to take me with you now,” I said in a hurry before he could speak, “I killed Eli’s girlfriend.” He frowned.

“Do you remember killing her?” he asked.

“No,” I had to admit, “but I do remember going into the desert. I suppose the hole I dug was to bury her in.” I felt tears coming into my eyes. “This is horrible.” Malcolm looked very angry now, so I backed away, expecting him to hit me.

“Horrible,” he gritted, “and not true. It’s a lie, one of many that Jake has told you, and is also telling me.”

“But how can you know?” I asked through the tears.

“I know with absolute certainty that he is lying about almost everything else he has told you about yourself. I can deduce therefore that this is a lie, also.”

“What about me killing my adopted parents?” I insisted.

“A definite lie. You had no adopted parents for a start.” He laughed bitterly.

“But how can you know?” I could feel my heart pounding. It was all too much conflicting information. My head was hurting and my vision was blurring.

“Calm down,” he said taking my arm, “this is what I was afraid of. It’s too much for you to cope with all at once. I’d like to tell you more, but I’m afraid it will upset you too much. Best if you find out for yourself. But I am asking you to trust me. Trust your instinct: I know that it is screaming to you that I am telling you the truth.”

Well, it’s true, I do trust him, but do I trust myself? Then something really strange happened. He went up to his room to shower and change, to at least make it seem as if that was what he had come back for. I could hear the shower going, and then I thought he might need an extra towel, as he was full of oil, and that it might be a good idea for me to collect his oily clothes and wash them. So I went up to his room, which was unlocked, meaning to put the towel on the bed and get his clothes, when he suddenly came out of the bathroom. He had showered really quickly. He was naked to the waist down, with a towel slung around his hips. I froze and stared, and it wasn’t just because he was so good looking, and a lot more handsome than Jake. There was something more, an odd feeling that I had seen him like that before, and had been in that exact same situation. He held his arms out, just like in my vision.

“Come here,” he said gently. I actually wanted to run, but I felt rooted to the ground. So instead he walked over to me, took the towel I was bringing out of my hand, threw it on the bed and embraced me. I couldn’t move and it felt oddly familiar and comforting to be in his arms.

“I mustn’t,” I said, thinking of how angry Jake would be.

“You can do whatever you want,” Malcolm said softly, “you don’t belong to him, or to anyone.” 

“But God says,” I began, thinking of what Jake always read to me from the Holy Book.

“God would have a thing or two to say about Jake’s behaviour, you can believe me, more than about yours.” He pulled me a little bit closer.

“But if Jake sees us,” I protested, but I didn’t pull away.

“Just say the word and we’ll be on our way tonight,” Malcolm answered, “then you never have to be afraid of Jake ever again.” I thought about it. Malcolm didn’t believe that I was insane, and he didn’t think that I was a murderer. He was sure that I could be cured. What did I have to lose, really?

“It would be safer if we went tomorrow,” I told him.

“Why is that?” Malcolm asked, not letting go of me. But I could see by the expression on his face that he was overjoyed I had at last agreed to leave with him.

“Because tomorrow they will all be at church. Leaving here at night is dangerous. We will certainly lose our way in the desert in the dark. If we leave tomorrow morning when everyone is at church we will be able to find our way.” Malcolm nodded.

“That makes sense.” He sighed. “I’d call for someone to come and help us, but I can’t get a phone signal anywhere, and apparently there is no internet connection in this place, either. Any landline telephones, apart from the one at the garage?”

“There’s a phone at the diner, but Martha tells Jake everything. I don’t know who else has a telephone, and I don’t know who would let you use one. I have no contact with the other people here in town. You must have seen the way they look at me. They’re scared of me.” I pulled back a little to look at Malcolm’s face.

“Yes, I’ve seen the way they look at you. It’s not you they are afraid of though. It’s Jake.” Malcolm laughed, but he wasn’t smiling. “They know better than to talk to you. Has anyone tried to?” I thought about the old man.

“I think so, I can’t trust my memory. An old man asked me to visit him. The next day, he was dead.”

“You can trust your memory. I dare say that Jake got rid of him, and the other people in town don’t want to share his fate.” Malcolm looked at me beseechingly. “You do realise now that I am telling the truth and only want to help you?”

“I believe you,” I said, “I just hope you’re right, and that I’m not a murderer.”

“You’re not a murderer,” Malcolm answered, “but you were right about one thing. Jake is dangerous. I thought he was just gaslighting you with psychological tricks, but it is a lot worse than I thought.”

“Gaslighting?” I asked, but Malcolm didn’t answer. He pressed his lips against mine, and I felt myself melt against him like it was meant to be like that.

When Jake kisses me, I don’t feel anything. I never feel anything with Jake at all. Jake says it’s my fault, it’s because there is something wrong with me. But maybe it isn’t my fault after all, because I definitely felt something when Malcolm was kissing me. I didn’t want to stop, either. But he pulled away in the end and stroked my hair.

“I have to go back, or Jake will wonder where I am. We’ll have enough time for that later, when we’re away from here. In the meantime, I want you to do something for me.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Keep trying to remember. Any little thing you can think of. We’ll talk later. I’ll see you at lunch.”

I watched him getting dressed, wishing that he could stay.

*

Lunch was not good. I know Jake very well and can tell his moods. Outwardly, he was joking with Nate and Malcolm, but inside he was seething. I could sense it. I wondered if he was angry because Malcolm had come back here for a shower, or if Malcolm had said something to upset him. I had a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach all through lunch, but Malcolm was laughing and I don’t think that he picked up on it. I think he was happy because he knew he would be leaving tomorrow and because I had agreed to go with him. I went back into the kitchen to hide as soon as I could because the tenseness in the air gave me a headache and made me feel weak with fear. Eli came after me to cuff me around the ear and tell me to collect the last of the dirty plates, and then he ran scalding hot water over my hands when I was washing the pots in the sink. It hurt so much that I almost cried. Somehow I longed to ask him if he thought that I had killed his girlfriend, and whether he had proof that I had. Somehow I still wasn’t convinced that what Malcolm had said was true, and that Jake had been lying all the time. Because why would he lie? Why would he tell me all these things if they weren’t true? Who am I really, if none of the things that Jake has been telling me are the truth? I still can’t get my head around it, and it agitates me. Together with my scalded hands, I’m feeling really messed up this afternoon. I don’t know how I will manage another evening like this.

*

Well, the evening started rather differently to what I had expected. Jake and Malcolm were jokey and laughing, and Jake kept slapping Malcolm on the back. They’ve gone out to the diner to have something to eat and a drink together before Malcolm leaves tomorrow. “Celebrate”, as Jake put it. Apparently they repaired the motorbike, I heard it roaring down the street this afternoon, and Malcolm paid Jake a lot of money for his trouble. No wonder Jake is in a good mood. He likes money.

I had been feeling bad all afternoon, and when I feel bad, I often have those visions. I think all that talk about Eli’s girlfriend and her death must have brought this on, but I don’t know. While Jake was washing and changing before they left for the diner, Malcolm came into the kitchen. He asked me how I was, so I told him that I had had another vision, and that I wasn’t feeling well.

“They’re not visions,” he insisted, “they’re memories. It’s a good sign that you are starting to remember, even if a lot of them will probably be very upsetting for you. But when we get away from here, we’ll make sure that you get therapy to help you cope.”

This is the scene that played out in my head, vision or memory, whatever it is, but I don’t know what it means, and Malcolm didn’t tell me:

“You can’t just keep him here,” the woman’s voice said, “that’s kidnapping. He might have family somewhere, or friends who are worried about him. And what’s the point anyway?”  
“Shut up you silly bitch,” the man answered, “I’m just keeping him here until he is well enough to travel. He’s had a head injury, he needs to get well again first.”

“He’s perfectly well enough to travel,” the woman rejoined, her voice louder low, “he needs a doctor. Get him to the hospital in Utopia and stop telling him all that nonsense.”

“You just keep out of it, bitch, Eli, tell her to back off. Can’t you keep your woman under control?” the man snarled.

The light was blinding me, so I shut my eyes again and tried to block it out, together with the noise.

*

When I told Malcolm about my vision, he looked sort of triumphant and sad at the same time.

“I don’t understand what it means, though,” I told him.

“I do,” he answered, “and so will you, eventually.”

“Why don’t you tell me?” I asked.

“Because I’ve seen that you can’t handle the truth yet,” he answered, “I don’t want to do anything that will make you retreat further. You have to remember of your own accord, I’m sure of that. I don’t want to do anything to further jeopardise your mental health.”

“I’m not sure that I understand,” I repeated.

“Trust me, you will,” Malcolm answered, “just focus on the fact that we will be away from here the at same time tomorrow. You know, I didn’t think I would find you, but now I have, I can hardly believe it. All those years torn between hope and despair.”

I didn’t understand what he said, but I made a note of that conversation so that I don’t forget it. Actually, I am much less afraid of forgetting things since I have been talking to Malcolm. I’ve been rereading my notebooks, and I haven’t really forgotten anything much of the stuff that I’ve been making a note of. But it still doesn’t add up.


	5. Chapter 5

I didn’t think I’d ever have the opportunity to write again. I didn’t think Jake would ever leave me alone. I don’t know what to do; I just don’t know what to do. I suppose I can be thankful that Jake hasn’t found my note books because the situation is bad enough as it is. I want to write down what has happened so far, not so much because I am afraid I will forget, because at this point I am fairly confident that I will remember everything, despite what Jake tries to make me believe, but because I need to sort out my options and my thoughts. Memories are coming back to me hard and fast, and writing has helped to accelerate that. I feel as if I have finally shaken off a numbness that stopped me from thinking and functioning properly.

You see, Jake saw us in Malcolm’s room, embracing. I don’t know if he heard what we were saying, but it hardly matters. He saw us with our arms around one another, and that is enough to merit the most severe punishment. At some point I am pretty sure that Jake will either lock me up for good, or kill me. But that’s not what is worrying me. Now that I am beginning to reclaim who I am, this existence I am forced to endure is nothing I particularly wish to cling to. Let Jake kill me and throw my corpse out into the desert until the sun has bleached my bones, I don’t care. I suspect I wouldn’t be the first.

What I do care about is what has become of Malcolm. It’s been eight days now, and I don’t know whether he is alive or dead. Jake told me that he left without me, but that can’t be true, I know it can’t. If I could, I would sneak round to the garage and see if I can find his motor bike, but there’s no way I can leave the guest house. We don’t even go home at night anymore. It is this that gives me the tiny sliver of hope that Malcolm is still alive, and kept prisoner here at the guest house. But I don’t know.

On the evening that Jake and Malcolm went to the diner to “celebrate”, I had an early night, as Jake likes me to be in bed before he comes home, and he had specifically ordered me to go straight to bed that evening. I heard them come home, at least I heard voices. Then Jake came to bed.

He is usually rough with me, but never as bad as he was that night. I tried to be quiet, but I was in such pain that I couldn’t quite suppress my screams. They seemed to excite him, and he hurt me more and more so that I could not avoid crying out it pain. I used to think it was my duty to let him sleep with me, but now I am pretty sure that what he is doing is rape. He raped me five times that night. I kept telling him to stop, but he was in a frenzy. I thought he would kill me, and at the time I wondered why Malcolm wasn’t there to help me. Now I know that he was either locked up by that time, or dead.

Jake taunts me with my infatuation as he calls it. He says that Malcolm was just making fun of me, and that they both had a good laugh at my expense at the diner. I can’t believe that is true. I can’t believe that Malcolm could be like that. Jake has lied before, he must be lying now, too. He said Malcolm left without even bothering to say goodbye. It was all one, big elaborate joke. But if it was a joke, how come Malcolm’s word games and hints have made me so much better? I can’t believe he was just making fun of me, I won’t believe it. I look in the mirror and see that he was telling the truth when he said that I am not ugly.

This is the first day that Jake has left the guest house. Every day since Malcolm’s disappearance, he has been here with me, ordering me around, watching me, reading to me from the Holy Book, berating me for my sins, ridiculing me for liking Malcolm and telling me that I am ugly, deformed, sick, twisted and a murderer. During the short moments that he left me alone, locked in the bedroom, I have been hearing the sound of hammering and a drill. I don’t know what that means.

Today Jake has locked me in the kitchen and gone to the garage. These past few days I have seen no one but Jake, not even Eli. I think I heard Nate’s voice once at the door, but I can’t be sure.

The kitchen has bars on the windows. I have never thought about it, but all the windows on the ground floor have bars to deter burglars. What burglars? They also keep me from getting out. But even if I could escape from the kitchen, where would I go? There is only the desert out there, and I doubt I could even get that far.

What I really want to do is to move around the guest house and find out if Malcolm is locked up here somewhere. I hope with all my heart that he is not dead. He is the first person who has been kind to me. No, that isn’t true. He is the first person who has been kind to me since I came to this nameless town and forgot what happened before.

What I now remember is this: I’m late. I need to catch a flight home, urgently. My mother rang me, my grandfather is sick. These are still just words. I have no concept of my mother or my grandfather. I just know that they are real people. They have no faces – not yet. I take a short cut through a desert. I am frantic with worry. I lose my way. I must have fainted briefly, perhaps the heat or the stress, and hit something with the car, because the next thing I remember is that my head hurts, and the sound of a car horn is ringing in my ears. My head is lying on the steering wheel, sounding the horn. It stops when someone talks to me and lifts my head to wipe my face. “Are you alright?” The face and the voice are Jake’s. Everything goes black. When I wake up, I’m in a darkened room. It’s the bedroom here at the guest house. I can’t remember anything, but Jake tells me that my name is Clement, and that he is my brother Jake. I had an accident, but he will look after me. He has always looked after me. I believe him. I have nothing else to believe.

I’m not Clement. That’s not my name.

*

I’ve become a sneak. I’ve been pretending to be the same as always, I stopped asking about Malcolm, and I’ve been pretending to be Clement. Clement, who doesn’t exist. I’m sure that Malcolm is alive now. Jake took a tray with food out of the kitchen this evening. God knows what he is doing to him. I pray it is not the same thing he does to me.

He’s locked me in the bedroom at the guest house while he is downstairs watching TV, and I’ve been rifling through the draws of the bedside cabinet. Jake’s got a gun, but it’s not in there. Some ammunition is, though. And I found something else. It seemed immediately familiar to me, although I shouldn’t know what it is. But I do. It’s a mobile phone, useless here as there is no signal, so Malcolm told me. But I thought there might be other clues. And there are.

There was a charger cable with the phone, so I plugged it in. Now, how do I know how to do that if I am just simpleton Clem who has lived all his life in this nameless town in the desert? It only took a few minutes for the phone to light up. It demanded a password. I thought it must be Malcolm’s phone, so I entered his name. As it turned out, Malcolm is the correct password, but I don’t think it is Malcolm’s phone. There’s a contact list, and Malcolm is one of the contacts. There is a whole list of names, but none of them is Jake’s, or anyone that Jake knows.

I notice that there is a folder with pictures on the phone, so I open it. The first photo shocks me so that it must have taken me at least ten minutes to quieten my beating heart. It is a photo of me and the dark-haired girl I always dream about. We’re laughing. I look different. Different hair, different clothes, a smile. She is pretending to throttle me, she has her hands around my neck in jest, and we are both laughing.

If that picture has shocked me, the next one throws me completely. It’s me again, that strange me with the strange hair and clothes, and the strange expression, happy, carefree, confident. And next to me, his arms wrapped around me and his lips on my cheek, is Malcolm. And we’re younger. Perhaps three or four years younger than now. Barely more than teenagers. I’m so shocked that I can’t look at any more pictures.

I’m listening, but I can still hear the TV droning downstairs. On an impulse, I open the folder labelled messages. There are messages from Mum, Dad, Agatha. Most of them from Malcolm. The last one is from three years ago. “Tris, do me a favour and don’t drive like a madman. Let me know when you’re at the airport, I’ll pick you up the other end. Kisses. M. There’s one from Mum, same day: “Granddad will be OK, minor heart attack. Please drive carefully. Will see you soon. Love, Mum. The last one I open is from Agatha. “See you soon, idiot. Don’t forget my chocs. Aggie.” Aggie. Agatha. My sister.

I am so stricken that the image of the dark haired woman, who was once a dark haired child, has suddenly and sharply materialised before me, that I almost throw down the phone. I pull the charger out of the plug hole and carefully wind it around the phone to put it back in the drawer, as it was before. I’m scared. I will shove the notebook that I retrieved from the kitchen and hid in my back pocket under the mattress. The TV is still droning. I lie down and pretend to sleep.

*

Of course Jake has never looked at the phone, or he would immediately have known who Malcolm is. He couldn’t look at the phone, because he didn’t know the password. I’ve been sitting in the kitchen, thinking about what I saw. Aggie is my sister. I’m beginning to remember her. She’s older than me, and we always argued a lot. But I love her very much. And Malcolm apparently is my boyfriend, my partner or lover, something like that. Has he been looking for me? He did say something like that. A lot of what he has said now makes sense. He was afraid I would panic if he told me too much, so he left me to find out myself. If all had gone well, we would be long gone from here, back wherever it is that I belong, with people who love me. Not here with Jake, the kidnapper, the psychopath and murderer, who projected his own traits onto me. I need to get out of this kitchen and find Malcolm. Jake took a tray down the corridor this morning. I’m sure Malcolm is still alive, locked up here somewhere.

Another thing that didn’t hit me right away after I had looked at the phone. I know that I am not Clement, but I didn’t know who I was. Now I do. Malcolm asked me once if the name Tristan meant anything to me. It didn’t at the time. In his message to me, he calls me “Tris”, short for Tristan. Clem is a weird parody of this; one of Jakes holy names, while Tristan is a pagan one. But perhaps he didn’t change my name, perhaps he never knew it, I don’t know. I am Tristan. Tris.

*

Sitting in the kitchen again, wondering how to get out. I could just break the door down I suppose, I’m not sure how strong it is, but I don’t want to do anything that might make Jake suspicious. If Malcolm is still alive I must do nothing that might jeopardise his safety.

I remembered something. Malcolm is a motor bike enthusiast. I used to ride behind him on his bike, and we used to go on long tours through a countryside vastly different from this dry desert; green, verdant and mild. I can remember us making love, in a field, near a stream, under the moon. I remember being very much in love with Malcolm. His face was etched into my mind. How could I ever have forgotten him? It must have been a shock for him after so long – three years according to the phone – to suddenly come across me and to realise that I didn’t even remember him. It must have broken his heart.

*

It’s afternoon. While I was writing this morning, sitting in the kitchen, I heard the front door being opened. I hid the notebook, expecting it to be Jake, but it wasn’t. Someone called “Clem!” through the door, and when I answered, the key was turned in the lock, and Nate stood there, looking at me sheepishly.

Nate has always been the nicest of the three, and the only one who has never hurt me, so I saw no reason to be afraid. He looked very apprehensive, though.

“Clem,” he hissed, “Are you all right? I’ve been worried about you. Jake has gone too far this time.” He sighed.

“Do you know where Malcolm is?” I demanded.

“I’m not sure,” Nate answered, “I think he’s still here. Jake’s planning on killing him though. And who knows what he will do next? He’s always been difficult. That’s why you’ve got to go. I’ve got to get you out of here somehow.”

“Is this some kind of trick?” I wanted to know. “You’ve never helped me before.”

“I know,” Nate said, “and I’m sorry. I always felt you were a good person, but Jake told us that you killed Carol...”

“Carol?” I interrupted, “Who is Carol?”

“Eli’s girlfriend,” Nate answered shamefacedly, “at the time I thought it was weird because you were still quite weak, but I believed Jake. Now I don’t know what to believe. But it’s not right of him to keep you here locked up. It was different when you were here of your own accord.”

I was never here of my own accord,” I snarled angrily. “I’ve started to remember who I am. Your brother as good as kidnapped me.”

“I know, but, well, you seemed happy enough.” Nate looked away.

“I was a zombie,” I barked, “kept in ignorance by all of you.” I tried to focus. “Are you going to let me out?”

“I want you to go away from here, but I don’t know how to get you out. You’ll need to cross the desert. I’d have to get you a car to use, but Jake is here every night, and you can’t get away without being seen during the day.”

“Nate,” I said, “Jake will be away for a few more hours. Just let me out so that I can see if I can find Malcolm here somewhere and talk to him. Come back at midday and lock me back in. That would be a start.”

“Sure,” he answered, and he looked so upset that I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

*

I found Malcolm. He is in one of the guest rooms on the ground floor. Of course; they have bars on the windows. This one has a heavy door, which it is heavily fortified on the outside, too. I wonder when Jake did that, as there was never a room with a barred door.

There is no way I could open or break down the door. I tried the keys in the bedside cabinet, but none of them fit. Jake must have them on him. But I did manage to talk to Malcolm. I told him that I remember who I am, at least vaguely, and that I remember him, too. He was so happy I could hear him crying. He told me that he isn’t hurt, and that Jake has only been in to bring him food. I don’t know if I believe him.

My only option is to get the keys from Jake.


	6. Chapter 6

Am I perhaps mad after all? I don’t know who to trust. I certainly can’t trust my own perception. I feel as if I were living in two worlds at once. Also, I don’t understand why Nate is helping me. Is it all a deliberate plan to drive me even deeper into dependency and despair, or is he really wracked with remorse, and wants to help me escape?

I can’t see Malcolm, I can only talk to him through the door when Nate secretly lets me out. I’m not even sure that there is actually really anybody behind that door at all. What if it is all an elaborate hoax, either one thought up by Jake, or, even worse, by my own brain? Was there ever really a Malcolm at all? Perhaps I made it all up and I am slowly going madder and madder. Jake always said I was crazy.

The telephone. I’ve looked at it again, and it seems real enough. There are dozens of photographs of Malcolm. There’s a house, which I think I might have lived in, and a couple I suppose are my parents. Photographs of the woman I believe is my sister. There is a photograph of two children, sitting next to one another and grinning, the girl is dark haired with long, gangly arms, the boy is younger and his fringe is blond. The girl could be her, and the boy could be me.

I listen to the answering machine. Hi, this is Tristan, please leave me a message after the beep. It sounds like my voice, but it’s difficult to tell.

Messages. Tris, please be at the theatre by 10. Adrian. Tristan, don’t forget lunch at Grandpa’s. Mum. Hello Tristan, you mother and I really enjoyed the play. Love, Dad. Tris, can u buy 1 loaf brown bread + bottle of white on ur way home see you xxx luv Malcolm PS drive carefully. You little shit did you scoff all my Easter chocolate I will kill you, your affectionate sister A.

Was this my life once, or is it all a dream, or a twisted joke? I seem to remember a past, but perhaps I am just imagining it. Or am I imagining a past in which my parents died when I was a child, and I was adopted by Jake, Nate and Eli’s parents, and grew up as their brother? Each of these possibilities seems as completely divorced from reality as the other. Am I hallucinating? I don’t know what to think.

*

Nate lets me out of the kitchen on the second day, and I hurry to the room with the barred door. The voice behind it sounds unreal. “Thank God you’re OK Tris. I love you, Tris. I’m so glad you remembered me - us. It will all come back to you. You have to get me out of here, soon Tris, please try to find out where the keys are. Try to focus, Tris, no you’re not going mad, you’re not going mad, I swear you aren’t going mad, you are remembering. Remember, remember, remember your dreams. Tris. You are not Clem, there is no Clement. There is no such person. You are Tristan. Please, please try to find the key. Don’t give up now. You mustn’t give up.”

Then Jake comes home and it almost feels like sanity. “You understand that I have to lock you up. You are a danger to yourself and to others. There is no Malcolm, there never was such a person. Just a couple more days, and I will let you out again. You must be punished. Just two more days. It’s all for your own good, you understand that, don’t you? It was always just for your own good.” I play along. But I also half believe it.

He’s left me locked in the bedroom again. He’s downstairs watching television by the sound of it. There are no keys in the drawer. He must have them on him. I could wait until he has gone to sleep and then search his clothes, but he’s a light sleeper unless he drinks alcohol. And he hasn’t been drunk these past ten days. He’s been vigilant. He rapes me every night he comes to bed. It’s for my own good. It’s to bring me back into line, and to stop me fantasising. If Nate hadn’t let me out for the past two days, I would believe there is no Malcolm, and never was. Even so, I am not sure. I speak to him, but I haven’t seen him for days. Am I hallucinating Malcolm? Or is it all a plot to make me crazier than I already am? I don’t know. But I do know that I can’t stand much more of this. I feel as though my mind were stretched taught like a rubber band. I feel as though my mind were a rubber band which is on the verge of snapping. Breaking. Overstretched. I wish I knew...

*

Oh God, I don’t know what just happened. I should move, but I can’t. I need to write this down and get it sorted out in my own head, just pray he doesn’t move, ever again. If I look away I think I can see him moving out of the corner of my eye but if I turn and look properly, he is slumped across the bed just as he was before. I should move. I need to go, but I can’t, I have to sort out what happened.

I was writing, and the TV was droning, then suddenly, without warning the key turned in the lock and the door was thrown open so fast that I couldn’t even think quickly enough to hide the book. He was drunk, he’s been sober these past few days, but I could smell the alcohol, and see it in his bloodshot eyes and unsteady legs. He took one look at the notebook in my hands and grabbed it before I could pull it away. He flicked through the pages really fast and then he threw it into the corner and screamed at me: “I knew it! You deceitful little whore, I knew it! You’ll catch it now, you and your fucking boyfriend. I fucking knew that he had come looking for you. I could see it in the way he stared at you, the scheming, lying shit. Well I’ll take his corpse out into the desert to bury tomorrow, you can be sure of that. I’ll teach Nate a lesson or two as well while I’m at it. I just knew you’d been looking at that phone, you’re too stupid to put everything back as it was. You know now, don’t you? You think you’re really clever, but you’re not. Do you think I care that you know who you are? It’ll be even more fun to keep you now that you know you don’t belong here. The boyfriend goes tomorrow, that will be the end of that, and you can live on knowing that it was your fault he had to die. Now I’m going to show you who’s boss.” I don’t remember all the words, but it was something like that. I was so panicked that I couldn’t move, and just kept staring at the notebook and the pen, both lying in the corner of the room.

Then he grabbed me by the hair and screamed at me to take my clothes off or he’d rip them off me. I was so scared that I couldn’t move until he started to pull off my shirt, ripping it down the middle, and I undressed. I had hardly finished, when he pushed me back onto the bed and climbed on top of me, undoing his zip. I knew what he would do, and I lay there wondering why I couldn’t stop him. I’m taller than Jake, and I may be thin, but I’m not weak. I kept thinking why I had never thought to use physical force to stop him.

He entered me, no preparation, and I screamed in pain. I lifted my knees and struggled to try and throw him off me, but he’s a heavy, solid man, and that’s when I felt it, pressed hard and sharp against my thigh. It had to be the key, in the front pocket of his half-lowered trousers. It poked and cut into the flesh of my thigh through the denim of Jake’s jeans. My arms flailed around, looking for something to hold onto, I was in so much pain. My hand hit the bedside lamp, a big, old-fashioned lump of wrought-iron with a solid ceramic base. I tried to get a grip in on the lamp shade, but it pulled off when I tried to lift the lamp. Then I managed to grab the lamp around the middle, just below the bulb. I don’t know what possessed me. It was a mixture of the pain, and the threat that he would kill Malcolm, the realisation that this was real, and that Malcolm was real, and that this was the reality I wanted to keep. I felt the keys cutting into my thigh. I lifted the lamp as high as I could over his head. He had his eyes shut and was grunting, lying on me and forcing himself inside me, rhythmically. I brought the base of the lamp down on the back of his head as hard as I could. And then, nothing. Not a sound. He just stopped moving. He was a dead weight on top of me. I hardly dared to breathe. I thought that any minute he would start moving and screaming at me, and then kill me for sure. But he didn’t. Then I felt something sticky on my hand which was resting on his shoulder. I lifted it. It was blood, seeping through his hair.

I rolled him off me, wiped my hand and grabbed the notebook. And here I am, writing because I don’t know what to do next. He’s not moving. I need to get the keys out of his pocket and see if they open the door to the room that Malcolm is locked inside. If he really is there at all, and this is not all some elaborate nightmare my sick brain has concocted to drive me over the edge to insanity.

*

“What are you doing?” Malcolm just said to me.

“I need to write down what happened,” I tell him, “I’m afraid of forgetting. I’m afraid this is all a bad dream.”

“You won’t forget,” he tells me, “I won’t let you forget things ever again. Although perhaps this is best forgotten.”

“I’m afraid Jake is going to wake up,” I tell him.

“He won’t wake up,” Malcolm answers, “he’s dead. I checked his pulse. I also locked the door. Don’t you remember?” I nod.

I got the keys out of Jake’s pocket and ran down the corridor. It took some fumbling for me to open all the locks to the door. By the time I had finished, Malcolm was calling through the door: “Hey, who’s there?”

“It’s me,” I answered, “Tristan, Tris, I have the keys.”

“Oh, God, hurry,” he said, “hurry, Tris.”

When I opened the door he just grabbed hold of me and hugged me.

“What the hell happened?” He pushed me back a little so that he could look into my face. I had no clothes on, I hadn’t even thought to put any on, because I was so frantic. I just shook my head so he stepped back into the room and fumbled something out of his saddle bag. He pulled a t-shirt over my head and made me step into some boxer shorts. Then he held out a pair of jeans. “Put them on,” he said gently. He held them out for me to step into, pulled them up and fastened them. I just couldn’t seem to think properly. They were a bit too short and too large around the waist. “You never did fit into my clothes properly,” he said affectionately, “it never stopped you from borrowing them from time to time, though.” I wondered what he meant. “You don’t remember, do you?” he asked sadly. I had a vision of Malcolm opening the door to me, his hands on his hips and looking me up and down. “So that’s where my new blue shirt got to,” he scolded, “I’ve been looking for it all morning and you stole it out of my closet. You might have asked.” In the vision, I smiled and kissed him, and he chased me through the house, our house, laughing, until we fell breathless onto the sofa and kissed and kissed... but is that real?

“I think I remember,” I answered, just to see him smile, but I’m not sure I do.

“Pack what you need to take,” he told me, but all I wanted were my notebooks. I was afraid to get them from the bedroom, so we went inside together. Jake was still lying on the bed exactly as I had left him, I kept thinking that I could see him moving out of the corner of my eye, but Malcolm said that he isn’t breathing. That means I killed him. Even if I didn’t kill Eli’s girlfriend, I am a murderer now. I told Malcolm but he said that I killed Jake in self-defence and that no one would ever convict me of murder. He said something about diminished responsibility, but I’m not mad, am I?

I got the notebook and the pen out of the corner where Jake had thrown them, and fumbled the first notebook from under the mattress, where I had hidden it. We left, and Malcolm locked the door. I tried the handle twice to make sure it really was locked.

Then we sneaked out of the guest house into the darkness to go to the garage. Malcolm wanted to go alone, but I was afraid to stay in the house alone. I am afraid that if I lose sight of Malcolm he will disappear and this will all have been a dream and I will wake up next to Jake and there will never ever have been a Malcolm, except in my imagination. I am afraid that if I stay in the house, Jake will suddenly wake up and kill me. So we both go to the garage, and Malcolm knows exactly where his motorbike is. There is not a sound from anywhere, Nate and Eli are asleep in the flat above the garage, but they’re heavy drinkers and heavy sleepers. We get the bike out and push it out of the garage and along the street. We leave it concealed behind the guest house. Jake took the keys away from Malcolm, but they’re on the keyring I took out of his pocket. The tank is full and there is no reason to believe that the bike is not in working order. So what we are doing is this: We are waiting until it is nearly sunrise, then we will push the bike out of the town into the desert, and then when it is light enough to see where we are going, we will head straight for Utopia. I don’t think anyone would stop us now that Jake is dead, not even Eli, I think he will be glad that we are gone. But better safe than sorry, that’s what Malcolm said. So we're waiting, and I'm writing.

*

“Jake?” He was looking down at me. He seemed worried.

“Thank God you’re awake, Clem,” Jake said, “you’ve been fantasising for days. You’ve been feverish. We even had the doctor here from Utopia. You’ll be OK now. Everything will be OK.”

“I had so many strange dreams, Jake, I dreamt I killed you. I’m so sorry.” Jake shrugged his shoulders.

“You didn’t kill me, here I am, real as day. Why would you kill me? I’m your brother, remember?” I blinked. He was standing with his back to the window. The backlighting made the image of him fade and blur before my eyes. I wanted to go back to sleep, but there was something very important troubling me. Something I really needed to remember.

“Malcolm?” I asked, “was there really someone here called Malcolm?” Jake frowned.

“Now that’s funny you should say that,” he answered, “because you called out that name while you were sick and hallucinating in those fever dreams of yours, but there’s no Malcolm around here, nor has there ever been. The only thing I can think of is that film we watched on TV the night before you fell ill, do you remember? There was a man called Malcolm in that. Maybe you got the film all confused with your dreams. Never mind, you’ll be up and about in a few days the doctor said.”

“A film?” I asked, “I don’t know what’s real and what’s a dream anymore.”

“The doctor said the high fever you had would leave you a bit confused. It will pass. The film was about a man who lost his memory. You said at the time that the town in the film looked a bit like our town.” Jake looked down at me.

“What’s the name of our town?” I asked.

“It doesn’t have a name,” he smiled, “it doesn’t need one.”


	7. Chapter 7

I can’t ever tell Jake what I made out of him in my fever dreams, I feel so bad that I cast him as some incestuous, raping, kidnapping monster when in reality, he is my older brother. There are four of us, I’m the youngest. My parents aren’t dead, and I’m not adopted. We’re one big, happy family and we’ve always lived in this town in the desert with friends and family. It doesn’t have a name. It doesn’t need one.  
Jake’s always looked after me. He’s the oldest, and he always let me trail along with him and his friends. Nate’s the second oldest, he’s just a calm, quiet boy who’s always kind to everyone. Eli and I don’t get on so well, Jake says he’s just jealous, but we fight a lot. I don’t care, because I since I’ve grown bigger than him he daren’t annoy me much anymore. Anyway, he’s got a girlfriend now, so he’s not so much bothered.

Apparently I had glandular fever, and was ill for weeks. I was so ill that they couldn’t even bring me to the hospital, but the doctor who came from Utopia gave me some antibiotics which did the trick. He said I’d be a bit confused due to the high fever that made me hallucinate, but I can never tell poor Jake about it. It seems we had watched a film on TV called Amnesia about a man who lost his memory after a car crash. I must have got that mixed up in my fever dreams and

*

I am slowly reclaiming my life. If only it weren’t for these horrible, horrible nightmares, where I am back in that town with Jake, but in a kind of alternate reality where Jake is just my brother, and I was never kidnapped but just made it all up. I still have the feeling that I am living in two realities at once, and I don’t know what to do to make either one or the other feel real. The psychologist that Malcolm takes me to tells me all about depersonalisation and dissociation, and it seems quite logical when she says it, but I can’t connect it to myself because I am not sure that this is the real world. But that is exactly it, she says when I tell her that, that is the nature of dissociation. You become detached from yourself, and detached from reality. It happens to people after they lose their memory, and it happens after severe trauma. It is a perfectly natural response.

There have been other things to deal with. When we got to Utopia, we went straight to the police. They sent a team to the town to deal with Jake’s body, and to question Nate, Eli and the others. I hadn’t showered or even washed after Jake had raped me, so it was easy enough to prove what had happened. I was covered in bruises and abrasions from this and other mistreatments. They had a psychologist who came and talked to me, and she was very kind and assured me that no charges would be brought against me, and that my mental and physical state was of great concern. All the while I couldn’t let Malcolm out of my sight. I was afraid that if I did, he would just disappear because I had only made him up in the first place. I still don’t let him out of my sight. The only thing I have to do is to close my eyes and sleep, and every time I do, I lose him. I’m back with Jake, only with a kinder, nicer Jake. I still don’t want to be there with him, though. I am afraid of sleeping, and the sleeping tablets they have given me don’t stop the bad dreams. One day I’m sure I won’t wake up again, because the dreams are the reality, and this, my life with Malcolm, is the dream.

*

“Hey Clem, do you want to come out to the desert on the pickup?” I shake my head. I know they mean well. Even Eli looks worried.

“Since you were so ill you’ve been so sad,” he says, “it’s not even much fun picking on you anymore.”

“Come on,” Nate says, “we’ll let you drive!” But I don’t want to, there’s always something sad stuck at the back of my mind but I can’t remember what it is...

*

Yes, I’m slowly reclaiming my life, but at the moment, it’s just words. My family were overjoyed and wanted to fly out and meet me immediately after we had rung them from Utopia, but I told Malcolm I couldn’t bear it. I just wanted to see Aggie, so she flew over alone, and when she put her arms around me and burst into tears, I felt safe for a minute.

When they dropped the charges and we could go home, I didn’t want to see anyone else at first. I was afraid that the fantasy would collapse if it got too elaborate. And I was embarrassed because I hardly remembered my own parents, although I had been working hard at remembering with Malcolm and Aggie.

I’ve been missing for three years, three years in which everyone believed me to be dead, apart from Malcolm. I had been visiting my agent abroad, my agent who lived in a fashionably remote area, several hundred miles from an international airport. I was driving back to the airport when my mother called to tell me that my Grandfather had been taken to hospital. She suffers from terrible guilt, and wishes she had not rung me at all. She didn’t realise that I was already on my way home. I had planned to stay another day but had decided to leave early.

I had more than enough time to catch the flight I had planned to leave on, but then I decided if I took a short cut and hurried I could get an earlier flight. So I found a route that would take me straight through a desert. What could possibly go wrong, apart from the fact that the sat nav stopped working and the air conditioning either couldn’t cope with the heat, or broke down, I don’t remember.

I already had a bit of a history with dangerous driving. I’d smashed two cars whilst driving too fast, I always fancied myself a bit of a racing driver although experience should have taught me that I am not in actual fact a very good driver at all. I must have nodded off briefly, and hit a boulder. Of course I was driving far too fast. Apparently Jake, Nate and Eli found the wrecked car and went to salvage parts for repairs. The horn was tooting because my head was lying on it, and the noise alerted them to the car wreck. They found me there unconscious, and brought me back with them. Nate and Eli testified that when Jake saw my face, he said that he wanted to keep me because I looked so beautiful. This I know because Malcolm went to the hearings and told me all about what was said. I couldn’t face going myself, and the psychologist advised against it. When I testified I was allowed to talk to the judge alone.

Apparently Nate and Eli wanted to take me to the hospital, at least so they said, although in Eli’s case I’m not so sure, but Jake wouldn’t let them. I suppose he was a sadist, and just wanted someone to mistreat, someone who could never escape. When he realised I had lost my memory, he told me all that stuff about being his brother. Later he modified it and told me I was his adopted step brother to justify raping me. Carol Fent, Eli’s girlfriend protested and threatened to go to the police in Utopia, so Jake must have killed her. He told Nate and Eli that I had strangled her in a fit of rage, because I was unstable. To cement the memory in my mind, Jake had me dig the grave. He was a very clever manipulator, in his way.

The town isn’t on any map. It’s tiny, with only 300 inhabitants, and it has no name. The people there were all under Jake’s thumb in some way or another. Most of them were elderly and too old to move or to protest. They had lived there all their lives. They just wanted to be left alone. The few younger ones left, or shut up. The old man who had tried to warn me died under mysterious circumstances. He had no family to query his death.

My family knew that I had disappeared somewhere between my agent’s house and the international airport. The police investigated my disappearance. They assigned a private investigator to the case. My parents, my sister and Malcolm scoured the area themselves. Of course, no one knew about my ill-fated short cut through the desert. But Malcolm didn’t give up. The idea I might have left the main road came to him while studying the map for the umpteenth time. He took his bike through the desert several times, but found nothing. On this occasion he had decided that this would be his final attempt. If his bike hadn’t broken down, it is doubtful he would ever have come across the town at all.

The idea that if I were still alive, I might have had a car crash and been suffering from amnesia crossed his mind. My reckless driving and accidents were a source of constant worry to him. He spoke to a psychologist about this, and she warned him not to shock anyone suffering from amnesia with too much reality, as it can cause a mental breakdown, so he was very careful about what he said when he first met me again. He told me it broke his heart to see me like that, and that he was glad that I had killed Jake, because it had saved him the trouble. He said he would have killed him for sure. He could hear me screaming all the time that he was locked up in the room, and I guess now that Jake meant him to hear that.

I’ve changed, I know I have. I am beginning to remember who I was and what I was like, and I know I am different now. But more than that, I can see it by the way people react to me, especially Malcolm. I don’t think I ever cooked much, or cleaned. I’m perfect at housework now, and it soothes my nerves. I used to clean the guest house all day, I did nothing else, and I would cook for Jake and his brothers. They would hit me if I wasn’t good enough, so I learned the hard way. I still duck when someone raises their hand.

I can’t tell if Malcolm likes these new things about me or not. He sometimes watches me cleaning the kitchen or making breakfast with an expression of pity on his face which quickly smoothes out when I turn to him.

I don’t like to drive anymore. I let Malcolm drive. I’m pretty sure I remember that we used to argue a lot about my driving. I don’t want to argue anymore. I’m afraid of arguing, and I’m afraid of driving.

I think I was really vain. I have an enormous walk-in wardrobe full of clothes, a huge mirror, and lots of cosmetics in the bathroom that are past their use-by dates, but which Malcolm refused to throw away. I put them all in the bin one day. There were pictures of me hanging all over the place, in costumes, on the stage, or publicity photos. They make me feel embarrassed. I believed that I was hideously ugly for so long that it is difficult to accept that I am probably pretty good-looking. Perhaps that is not such a bad thing. I’ve put up photos of Malcolm and me, pictures of my parents, of Aggie and my Grandfather instead. Malcolm raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t comment.

I wonder if I really was a very nice person at all, although so many people love me that I suppose I couldn’t have been that bad. A lot of what I remember and what I can judge by the reactions of those who knew me seems to paint me as a bit of a spoilt, arrogant brat. If I was, I’m sorry. At least now I have learned to value what I have.

*

I like the guest house. I like to imagine that it is full of people visiting, but fat chance of that happening in this backwater. Jake says I should be thankful for what I’ve got. But I want to get away from here.

Sometimes I get the feeling that the world is crumbling around the edges. There is a desert out there somewhere, and I remember that I could see it stretch for miles and miles when I looked out of the window of my favourite room in the guest house, but there is nothing there now, it’s just empty. Someone stayed there once but I can’t remember...

*

My name is Tristan Shade, that’s almost like Tristram Shandy. It’s not a stage name though, it’s my real name. I’m an actor. I’m a fairly well known theatre actor, considering that I’m still very young. Malcolm is a playwright. We met when I auditioned for the leading role in his first big production. We fell in love at first sight. I got the role, and the man. We decided we wanted to make a commitment, so we bought a house and moved in together.

Mum is a little bit melodramatic, she’s an actor, too. Dad’s an accountant, he says there has to be one sensible person in the family. Aggie’s a photographer. Grandpa was an actor too. He’s retired. He reads the Guardian culture pages so that he can rant at the critics, or alternately at his old colleagues. I know that because I am remembering now.

Maggie is the psychologist that I go to. She tells me that I am suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. She says that I would have regained my memory long before now, but the things that I experienced, the rape and the mental and physical abuse, the murder of Eli’s girlfriend, coupled with the amnesia that I contracted as a consequence of hitting my head after crashing the car, caused me to withdraw into the little world that Jake created for me. When Malcolm appeared, the world began to crack. As long as Malcolm slowly introduced elements of reality, I was able to cope, but when I was confronted with the contents of what had been my own phone with details of my own life, together with the horror of Jake locking Malcolm up and subjecting me to terrifying mistreatment, I had a bit of a mental breakdown. It’s taken me a while to understand what reality, and what dreams or fear-driven flashbacks are. I’m still afraid of going to sleep...

*

Because then I’m back in that kitchen, hiding my notebook behind the pots and cooking for my brothers, which makes no sense because surely our parents are still alive, so why are we eating in the guest house, or was it different and there are no parents, and never were, or there was something about me being adopted. And now I can’t even remember Jake’s face so I think I may be going mad.

“Hey, Tris, Tris?” Someone is shaking my shoulder, “bad dream again?” It’s Malcolm’s face, and it doesn’t fade away, in fact it gets clearer every day.

“Nothing much,” I tell him, “they’re fading now.”

“That’s good, that’s very good.” He smiles. Last night, we made love for the first time since I’ve come back. I just couldn’t before because of Jake, but that’s natural, Maggie says. Jake’s face is fading fast, and last night was wonderful, it felt like victory.

*

And one morning I wake up and I realise that I haven’t been dreaming about Jake, or Nate, but about a blackbird that was sitting on my head and singing in my ear. When I open my eyes, I see that the window is open, and a fresh, spring breeze is carrying the sound of a blackbird singing joyously on the blossoming cherry tree outside the bedroom. I turn on my side, and with a half-snore, Malcolm turns over to face me, and his eyes flicker open. He frowns at me, looking for signs of distress in my face. I smile.

I’m not well yet, I may never be completely well, but I have hope again, and I feel joy. I’m getting there.

“Good morning,” I say, and I take my pen and notebook from the bedside cabinet. “This will be my last entry. I don’t need it anymore.” He sits up and his eyes look shiny.

“Thank heavens,” he says, and he wraps me in an embrace so real and so warm that it makes my heart want to sing as loudly as the blackbird outside.


End file.
